Is cyclone II reconfigurable?

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Hello,

You hit the point. None of Altera FPGAs offers dynamic or partial reconfiguration of central logic function, the refconfiguraion option present in some newer devices is restricted to PLL or GXB interfaces. Thus the configuration as a whole has to be swapped to change logic definition. In this field, competitors are one step ahead.

Regards,

Frank

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But alas, while they are marketing ahead, they do not possess any solid practical tool methodology to efficiently achieve said partial reconfiguration.

And just to set the record straight, Concurent Logic (bought by ATMEL) was the first FPGA company to commerially offer partial reconfiguration to the user.

And it worked great as well.

Now to the point raised by the prior post, agreed, the external logic is committed to the IO pins, and as such, one could most likely design internal reprogrammable functions that could adaptively mutate their functions under NIOS II control, effectively achieving partial reconfiguration (of sorts) without the need to fully reload the entire FPGA array.

It just depends on what you are trying to do, the time frame you are (need) to get it done in, and how parallelly expansive you allow your mind to think (float).

Avatar

Hello,

Cyclone III has local and remote update ability, clearly distinguished from "dynamic reconfiguration". To perform a reconfiguration, the previous configuration has to be reset and the FPGA array reloaded, thus all logic functionality stops for a while. For applications tolerating a short blackout, this feature could be equivalent to "real" dynamic reconfiguration.

I basically agree with Avatar, that dynamic configuration today is mainly an object of marketing. Personally, I have no need to utilize this technique in a project. In contrast, in many of my applications (industrial measurement, power electronics) there are obvious reasons to avoid such options from a todays view.

The view may change, as the said solid tool methodology develops.

Regards,

Frank

Thanks a lot guys..for your valuable comments.

I have decided to do the project(not exactly the robot) on the cyclone II dev kit.

I shall keep you posted on the same.

Thanks again!

cheers!